Ptolemy
Claudius Ptolemy was a Greco-Roman mathematician, astronomer and astrologer. He lived in the city of Alexandria in the Roman province of Egypt, wrote in Koine Greek, held Roman citizenship; the 14th-century astronomer Theodore Meliteniotes gave his birthplace as the prominent Greek city Ptolemais Hermiou in the Thebaid. This attestation is quite late, and, according to Gerald Toomer, the translator of his Almagest into English, there is no reason to suppose he lived anywhere other than Alexandria, he died there around AD 168. Ptolemy wrote several scientific treatises, three of which were of importance to Byzantine and Western European science; the first is the astronomical treatise now known as the Almagest, although it was entitled the Mathematical Treatise and known as the Great Treatise. The second is the Geography, a thorough discussion of the geographic knowledge of the Greco-Roman world; the third is the astrological treatise in which he attempted to adapt horoscopic astrology to the Aristotelian natural philosophy of his day.
This is sometimes known as the Apotelesmatika but more known as the Tetrabiblos from the Greek meaning "Four Books" or by the Latin Quadripartitum. Ptolemaeus is a Greek name, it occurs once in Greek mythology, is of Homeric form. It was common among the Macedonian upper class at the time of Alexander the Great, there were several of this name among Alexander's army, one of whom made himself pharaoh in 323 BC: Ptolemy I Soter, the first king of the Ptolemaic Kingdom. All male kings of Hellenistic Egypt, until Egypt became a Roman province in 30 BC ending the Macedonian family's rule, were Ptolemies; the name Claudius is a Roman nomen. It would have suited custom if the first of Ptolemy's family to become a citizen took the nomen from a Roman called Claudius, responsible for granting citizenship. If, as was common, this was the emperor, citizenship would have been granted between AD 41 and 68; the astronomer would have had a praenomen, which remains unknown. The ninth-century Persian astronomer Abu Maʿshar presents Ptolemy as a member of Egypt's royal lineage, stating that the descendants of Alexander's general Ptolemy I, who ruled Egypt, were wise "and included Ptolemy the Wise, who composed the book of the Almagest".
Abu Maʿshar recorded a belief that a different member of this royal line "composed the book on astrology and attributed it to Ptolemy". We can evidence historical confusion on this point from Abu Maʿshar's subsequent remark "It is sometimes said that the learned man who wrote the book of astrology wrote the book of the Almagest; the correct answer is not known." There is little evidence on the subject of Ptolemy's ancestry, apart from what can be drawn from the details of his name. Ptolemy can be shown to have utilized Babylonian astronomical data, he was a Roman citizen, but was ethnically either a Greek or a Hellenized Egyptian. He was known in Arabic sources as "the Upper Egyptian", suggesting he may have had origins in southern Egypt. Arabic astronomers and physicists referred to him by his name in Arabic: بَطْلُمْيوس Baṭlumyus. Ptolemy's Almagest is the only surviving comprehensive ancient treatise on astronomy. Babylonian astronomers had developed arithmetical techniques for calculating astronomical phenomena.
Ptolemy, claimed to have derived his geometrical models from selected astronomical observations by his predecessors spanning more than 800 years, though astronomers have for centuries suspected that his models' parameters were adopted independently of observations. Ptolemy presented his astronomical models in convenient tables, which could be used to compute the future or past position of the planets; the Almagest contains a star catalogue, a version of a catalogue created by Hipparchus. Its list of forty-eight constellations is ancestral to the modern system of constellations, but unlike the modern system they did not cover the whole sky. Across Europe, the Middle East and North Africa in the Medieval period, it was the authoritative text on astronomy, with its author becoming an mythical figure, called Ptolemy, King of Alexandria; the Almagest was preserved, in Arabic manuscripts. Because of its reputation, it was sought and was translated twice into Latin in the 12th century, once in Sicily and again in Spain.
Ptolemy's model, like those of his predecessors, was geocentric and was universally accepted until the appearance of simpler heliocentric models during the scientific revolution. His Planetary Hypotheses went beyond the mathematical model of the Almagest to present a physical realization of the universe as a set of nested spheres, in which he used the epicycles of his planetary model to compute the dimensions of the universe, he estimated the Sun was at an average dis
Eidyn
Eidyn was the region around modern Edinburgh in Britain's sub-Roman and early medieval periods the 5th–7th centuries. It centred on the stronghold of Din Eidyn, thought to have been at Castle Rock, now the site of Edinburgh Castle, included much of the area below the Firth of Forth, it was the most important district of the Brittonic kingdom of Gododdin, significant power in the Hen Ogledd, or Old North, the Brittonic-speaking area of what is now southern Scotland and northern England. The site of Din Eidyn has been nearly continuously occupied since the Bronze Age, serving as a stronghold of the Votadini during the Roman era and the principal centre of their successors, the Gododdin kingdom. Eidyn's importance to the Hen Ogledd is reflected in the popularity of the medieval poem Y Gododdin, which concerns a war band that gathered there for a raid around AD 600. After years of decline, Eidyn was conquered by the Angles in 638. Eidyn left a considerable legacy, it is the source of the name of Edinburgh in both Scottish Gaelic.
It remained prominent in Brittonic tradition throughout the Middle Ages. Y Gododdin evidently circulated in multiple manuscripts into the 13th century. Eidyn features in the Welsh Triads and poetry, where it was remembered as the Britons' northern frontier. Welsh genealogies of the figure Clydno Eidyn may preserve Eidyn's royal pedigree. Questions of Eidyn's name and location are linked, as it is not clear what area the name refers to, it included the fortress of Din Eidyn in modern Edinburgh. Place-name evidence suggests Eidyn spread more surviving in the name of Carriden, located eighteen miles to the west. Kenneth H. Jackson argued that Eidyn referred to Din Eidyn, suggesting a different origin for Carriden. However, other scholars such as Ifor Williams and Nora K. Chadwick argued for the Caer Eidyn etymology and believed that Eidyn represented a wider region. Accepting the latter interpretation, Rachel Bromwich wrote that Eidyn would have covered much of the area south of the Firth of Forth, either abutting or including the area known as Manaw Gododdin.
Eidyn is the source of the name of Edinburgh in both Scottish Gaelic. The Angles, who conquered the area in the 7th century, replaced the Brittonic din in Din Eidyn with the Old English burh to produce Edinburgh; the origin of the name Eidyn is not known. It may not have been known in the 7th century, as both the Angles and Gaels adopted it into their languages more or less phonetically as they translated the term Din into their own languages; some sources suggest it derives from an Old English form referring to Edwin of Northumbria, though modern scholarship refutes this, as the form Eidyn predates Edwin. Eidyn is evidently the original form of the name, though Eiddyn appears in poetry. Welsh sources refer to Lleuddiniawn, the region now known as Lothian. Celtic scholar John T. Koch traces the names to the god Lugus, revered in this area, he argues. This name implies the existence of a Lugudunon, or "Fort of Lugus", which Koch suggested was an alternate name or epithet of Din Eidyn. Fortified communities appeared around Edinburgh in early Iron Age.
During Britain's early Roman era, the area was recorded as part of the territory of the Votadini. The Votadini were independent but subject to Roman influence in the 2nd century. Around 143, Emperor Antoninus Pius commenced the Antonine Wall north of the Votadini and what would become Eidyn, with its eastern terminus at Carriden; the Votadini may have become a Roman client kingdom, tasked with defending the border against the Picts and Scots. The conception of Eidyn as Britain's northern border against the barbarians remained popular for hundreds of years. In the post-Roman era, the Votadini polity transitioned into the Gododdin kingdom. Eidyn's importance to the Gododdin and the Hen Ogledd in general is attested in the early medieval poem Y Gododdin; the work relates that a force of 300 distinguished warriors from across the Brittonic world assembled at Din Eidyn for a raid on Catraeth around AD 600. The poem's dense language and convoluted history make it difficult to interpret the historical events underlying the work.
According to Ifor Williams' interpretation, the warriors were summoned by Mynydawc Eidyn a Gododdin ruler, to attack the Angles holding Catraeth. The warriors feasted for a year before setting out on the expedition, during which all were killed. Scholars such as John Koch and Graham Isaac have challenged elements of this interpretation, read Mynydawc as a place name referring to a mountain, not as a ruler. Koch suggested that the Eidyn ruler was Gwylget Gododdin, who are mentioned in the text. In the 7th century, the Gododdin kingdom was in decline. At this time, Eidyn may have been a sub-kingdom within Gododdin, its lords may have controlled only their own territory, not all of Gododdin; the Annals of Ulster record the "siege of Etin" in the year 638. This may refer to the final Anglian conquest of Lothian; this is the earliest certain historical reference to Eidyn. Eidyn appears to have remained in Anglian hands for most of the next three centuries, although historical and archaeological evidence is scant, it is unclear if a fortress remained at Din Eidyn.
The Annals of Clonmacnoise indicate that Aethelstan of England "spoiled the kingdom of Edinburgh" in 934, suggesting a fortification of some note existed at that time. The Chron
Old English
Old English, or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest historical form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th century, the first Old English literary works date from the mid-7th century. After the Norman conquest of 1066, English was replaced, for a time, as the language of the upper classes by Anglo-Norman, a relative of French; this is regarded as marking the end of the Old English era, as during this period the English language was influenced by Anglo-Norman, developing into a phase known now as Middle English. Old English developed from a set of Anglo-Frisian or Ingvaeonic dialects spoken by Germanic tribes traditionally known as the Angles and Jutes; as the Anglo-Saxons became dominant in England, their language replaced the languages of Roman Britain: Common Brittonic, a Celtic language, Latin, brought to Britain by Roman invasion. Old English had four main dialects, associated with particular Anglo-Saxon kingdoms: Mercian, Northumbrian and West Saxon.
It was West Saxon that formed the basis for the literary standard of the Old English period, although the dominant forms of Middle and Modern English would develop from Mercian. The speech of eastern and northern parts of England was subject to strong Old Norse influence due to Scandinavian rule and settlement beginning in the 9th century. Old English is one of the West Germanic languages, its closest relatives are Old Frisian and Old Saxon. Like other old Germanic languages, it is different from Modern English and difficult for Modern English speakers to understand without study. Old English grammar is similar to that of modern German: nouns, adjectives and verbs have many inflectional endings and forms, word order is much freer; the oldest Old English inscriptions were written using a runic system, but from about the 9th century this was replaced by a version of the Latin alphabet. Englisc, which the term English is derived from, means'pertaining to the Angles'. In Old English, this word was derived from Angles.
During the 9th century, all invading Germanic tribes were referred to as Englisc. It has been hypothesised that the Angles acquired their name because their land on the coast of Jutland resembled a fishhook. Proto-Germanic *anguz had the meaning of'narrow', referring to the shallow waters near the coast; that word goes back to Proto-Indo-European *h₂enǵʰ- meaning'narrow'. Another theory is that the derivation of'narrow' is the more connection to angling, which itself stems from a Proto-Indo-European root meaning bend, angle; the semantic link is the fishing hook, curved or bent at an angle. In any case, the Angles may have been called such because they were a fishing people or were descended from such, therefore England would mean'land of the fishermen', English would be'the fishermen's language'. Old English was not static, its usage covered a period of 700 years, from the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain in the 5th century to the late 11th century, some time after the Norman invasion. While indicating that the establishment of dates is an arbitrary process, Albert Baugh dates Old English from 450 to 1150, a period of full inflections, a synthetic language.
Around 85 per cent of Old English words are no longer in use, but those that survived are basic elements of Modern English vocabulary. Old English is a West Germanic language, it came to be spoken over most of the territory of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms which became the Kingdom of England. This included most of present-day England, as well as part of what is now southeastern Scotland, which for several centuries belonged to the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria. Other parts of the island – Wales and most of Scotland – continued to use Celtic languages, except in the areas of Scandinavian settlements where Old Norse was spoken. Celtic speech remained established in certain parts of England: Medieval Cornish was spoken all over Cornwall and in adjacent parts of Devon, while Cumbric survived to the 12th century in parts of Cumbria, Welsh may have been spoken on the English side of the Anglo-Welsh border. Norse was widely spoken in the parts of England which fell under Danish law. Anglo-Saxon literacy developed after Christianisation in the late 7th century.
The oldest surviving text of Old English literature is Cædmon's Hymn, composed between 658 and 680. There is a limited corpus of runic inscriptions from the 5th to 7th centuries, but the oldest coherent runic texts date to the 8th century; the Old English Latin alphabet was introduced around the 9th century. With the unification of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms by Alfred the Great in the 9th century, the language of government and literature became standardised around the West Saxon dialect. Alfred advocated education in English alongside Latin, had many works translated into the English language. In Old English, typical of the development of literature, poetry arose before prose, but King Alfred the Great chiefly inspired the growth of prose. A literary standard, dating from the 10th century, arose under the influence of Bishop Æthelwold of Winchester, was followed by such writers as the prolific Ælfric of Eynsham. Th
Hen Ogledd
Yr Hen Ogledd, in English the Old North, is the region of Northern England and the southern Scottish Lowlands inhabited by the Celtic Britons of sub-Roman Britain in the Early Middle Ages. Its denizens spoke a variety of the Brittonic language known as Cumbric; the Hen Ogledd was distinct from the parts of northern Britain inhabited by the Picts, Anglo-Saxons, Scoti as well as from Wales, although the people of the Hen Ogledd were the same Brittonic stock as the Picts and Cornish, the region loomed large in Welsh literature and tradition for centuries after its kingdoms had disappeared. The major kingdoms of the Hen Ogledd were Elmet in western Yorkshire. Smaller kingdoms or districts included Aeron, Eidyn and Manaw Gododdin; the Angle kingdoms of Deira and Bernicia both had Brittonic-derived names, suggesting they may have been Brittonic kingdoms in origin. All the kingdoms of the Old North except Strathclyde were conquered by Anglo-Saxons and Picts by about 800; the legacy of the Hen Ogledd remained strong in Wales.
Welsh tradition included genealogies of the Gwŷr y Gogledd, or Men of the North, several important Welsh dynasties traced their lineage to them. A number of important early Welsh texts were attributed to the Men of the North, such as Taliesin, Myrddin Wyllt, the Cynfeirdd poets. Heroes of the north such as Urien, Owain mab Urien, Coel Hen and his descendants feature in Welsh poetry and the Welsh Triads. Nothing is reliably known of Central Britain before c. 550. There had never been a period of long-term, effective Roman control north of the Tyne–Solway line, south of that line effective Roman control ended long before the traditionally given date of departure of the Roman military from Roman Britain in 407, it was noted in the writings of Ammianus Marcellinus and others that there was ever-decreasing Roman control from about AD 100 onward, in the years after 360 there was widespread disorder and the large-scale permanent abandonment of territory by the Romans. By 550, the region was controlled by native Brittonic-speaking peoples except for the eastern coastal areas, which were controlled by the Anglian peoples of Bernicia and Deira.
To the north were the Picts with the Gaelic kingdom of Dál Riata to the northwest. All of these peoples would play a role in the history of the Old North. From a historical perspective, wars were internecine, Britons were aggressors as well as defenders, as was true of the Angles and Gaels. However, those Welsh stories of the Old North that tell of Briton fighting Anglian have a counterpart, told from the opposite side; the story of the demise of the kingdoms of the Old North is the story of the rise of the Kingdom of Northumbria from two coastal kingdoms to become the premier power in Britain north of the Humber and south of the Firth of Clyde and the Firth of Forth. The interests of kingdoms of this era were not restricted to their immediate vicinity. Alliances were not made only within the same ethnic groups, nor were enmities restricted to nearby different ethnic groups. An alliance of Britons fought against another alliance of Britons at the Battle of Arfderydd. Áedán mac Gabráin of Dál Riata appears in the Bonedd Gwŷr y Gogledd, a genealogy among the pedigrees of the Men of the North.
The Historia Brittonum states that Oswiu, king of Northumbria, married a Briton who may have had some Pictish ancestry. A marriage between the Northumbrian and Pictish royal families would produce the Pictish king Talorgan I. Áedán mac Gabráin fought as an ally of the Britons against the Northumbrians. Cadwallon ap Cadfan of the Kingdom of Gwynedd allied with Penda of Mercia to defeat Edwin of Northumbria. Conquest and defeat did not mean the extirpation of one culture and its replacement by another; the Brittonic region of northwestern England was absorbed by Anglian Northumbria in the 7th century, yet it would re-emerge 300 years as South Cumbria, joined with North Cumbria into a single state. The organisation of the Men of the North was tribal, based on kinship groups of extended families, owing allegiance to a dominant "royal" family, sometimes indirectly through client relationships, receiving protection in return. For Celtic peoples, this organisation was still in effect hundreds of years as shown in the Irish Brehon law, the Welsh Laws of Hywel Dda, the Scottish Laws of the Brets and Scots.
The Germanic Anglo-Saxon law had culturally different origins, but with many similarities to Celtic law. Like Celtic law, it was based on cultural tradition, without any perceivable debt to the Roman occupation of Britain. A primary royal court would be maintained as a "capital", but it was not the bureaucratic administrative centre of modern society, nor the settlement or civitas of Roman rule; as the ruler and protector of his kingdom, the king would maintain multiple courts throughout his territory, travelling among them to exercise his authority and to address the needs of his clients, such as in the dispensing of justice. This ancient method of dispensing justice survived throughout England as a part of royal procedure until the reforms of Henry II modernised the administration of law. Modern scholarship uses the term "Cumbric" for the Brittonic language spoken in the Hen Ogledd, it appears to have been closely related to Old Welsh, with some local variances, more distant
Angles
The Angles were one of the main Germanic peoples who settled in Great Britain in the post-Roman period. They founded several of the kingdoms of Anglo-Saxon England, their name is the root of the name England; the name comes from Anglia, a peninsula located on the Baltic shore of what is now Schleswig-Holstein. The name of the Angles may have been first recorded in Latinised form, as Anglii, in the Germania of Tacitus, it is thought to derive from the name of the area they inhabited, the Anglia Peninsula. This name has been hypothesised to originate from the Germanic root for "narrow", meaning "the Narrow ", i.e. the Schlei estuary. Another theory is. During the fifth century, all Germanic tribes who invaded Britain were referred to as Englisc, who were speakers of Old English. Englisc and its descendant, English goes back to Proto-Indo-European *h₂enǵʰ-, meaning narrow. In any case, the Angles may have been called such because they were a fishing people or were descended from such, so England would mean "land of the fishermen", English would be "the fishermen's language".
Gregory the Great, in an epistle, simplified the Latinised name Anglii to Angli, the latter form developing into the preferred form of the word. The country remained Anglia in Latin. Alfred the Great's translation of Orosius's history of the world uses Angelcynn to describe the English people; the earliest recorded mention of the Angles may be in chapter 40 of Tacitus's Germania written around AD 98. Tacitus describes the "Anglii" as one of the more remote Suebic tribes compared to the Semnones and Langobardi, who lived on the Elbe and were better known to the Romans, he grouped the Angles with several other tribes in that region, the Reudigni, Varini, Eudoses and Nuitones. These were all living behind ramparts of rivers and woods, therefore inaccessible to attack, he gives no precise indication of their geographical situation, but states that, together with the six other tribes, they worshiped Nerthus, or Mother Earth, whose sanctuary was located on "an island in the Ocean". The Eudoses are the Jutes.
The coast contains sufficient estuaries, rivers, islands and marshes to have been inaccessible to those not familiar with the terrain, such as the Romans, who considered it unknown, with a small population and of little economic interest. The majority of scholars believe that the Anglii lived on the coasts of the Baltic Sea in the southern part of the Jutish peninsula; this view is based on Old English and Danish traditions regarding persons and events of the fourth century, because striking affinities to the cult of Nerthus as described by Tacitus are to be found in pre-Christian Scandinavian religion. Ptolemy, writing in around 150 AD, in his atlas Geography, describes the Sueboi Angeilloi, Latinised to Suevi Angili, further south, living in a stretch of land between the northern Rhine and central Elbe, but not touching either river, with the Suebic Langobardi on the Rhine to their west, the Suebic Semnones on the Elbe stretching to their east; these Suevi Angili would have been in Lower Saxony or near it.
The three Suebic peoples are separated from the coastal Chauci, Saxones, by a series of tribes including, between the Weser and Elbe, the Angrivarii, "Laccobardi", the Dulgubnii. South of the Saxons, east of the Elbe, Ptolemy lists the "Ouirounoi" and Teutonoari, which either denotes "the Teuton men", or else it denotes people living in the area where the Teutons had lived. Ptolemy describes the coast to the east of the Saxons as inhabited by the Farodini, a name not known from any other sources. Owing to the uncertainty of this passage, much speculation existed regarding the original home of the Anglii. One theory is that they or part of them dwelt or moved among other coastal people confederated up to the basin of the Saale on the Unstrut valleys below the Kyffhäuserkreis, from which region the Lex Anglorum et Werinorum hoc est Thuringorum is believed by many to have come; the ethnic names of Frisians and Warines are attested in these Saxon districts. A second possible solution is. According to Julius Pokorny, the Angri- in Angrivarii, the -angr in Hardanger and the Angl- in Anglii all come from the same root meaning "bend", but in different senses.
In other words, the similarity of the names is coincidental and does not reflect any ethnic unity beyond Germanic. However, Gudmund Schütte, in his analysis of Ptolemy, believes that the Angles have been moved by an error coming from Ptolemy's use of imperfect sources, he points out that Angles are placed just to the northeast of the Langobardi, but that these have been duplicated, so that they appear once on the lower Elbe, a second time, inco
Scottish Borders
The Scottish Borders is one of 32 council areas of Scotland. It borders the City of Edinburgh and Galloway, East Lothian, South Lanarkshire, West Lothian and, to the south-west and east, the English counties of Cumbria and Northumberland; the administrative centre of the area is Newtown St Boswells. The term Scottish Borders is used to designate the areas of southern Scotland and northern England that bound the Anglo-Scottish border; the Scottish Borders are in the eastern part of the Southern Uplands. The region is hilly and rural, with the River Tweed flowing west to east through it. In the east of the region, the area that borders the River Tweed is flat and is known as'The Merse'; the Tweed and its tributaries drain the entire region with the river flowing into the North Sea at Berwick-upon-Tweed, forming the border with England for the last twenty miles or so of its length. The term Central Borders refers to the area in which the majority of the main towns of Galashiels, Hawick, Earlston, Newtown St. Boswells, St Boswells, Peebles and Tweedbank are located.
Two of Scotland's 40 national scenic areas lie within the region: The Eildon and Leaderfoot National Scenic Area covers the scenery surrounding Eildon Hill, extends to include the town of Melrose and Leaderfoot Viaduct. The Upper Tweeddale National Scenic Area covers the scenery surrounding the upper part of the River Tweed between Broughton and Peebles. 2011 Galashiels: 14,994 Hawick: 14,294 Peebles: 8,376 Selkirk: 5,784 Kelso: 5,639 Jedburgh: 4,030 Eyemouth: 3,546 Innerleithen: 3,031 Duns: 2,753 Melrose: 2,307 Coldstream: 1,946 Earlston: 1,779 The term Borders has a wider meaning, referring to all of the counties adjoining the English border including Dumfriesshire and Kirkcudbrightshire – as well as Northumberland and Westmorland in England. Roxburghshire and Berwickshire bore the brunt of the conflicts with England, both during declared wars such as the Wars of Scottish Independence, armed raids which took place in the times of the Border Reivers. Thus, across the region are to be seen the ruins of many castles and towns.
The council area was created in 1975, by merging the historic counties of Berwickshire, Peeblesshire and Selkirkshire and part of Midlothian, as a two-tier region with the districts of Berwickshire and Lauderdale, Tweeddale within it. In 1996 the region became the districts were wound up; the region was created with the name Borders. Following the election of a shadow area council in 1995 the name was changed to Scottish Borders with effect from 1996. Although there is evidence of some Scottish Gaelic in the origins of place names such as Innerleithen and Longformacus, which contain identifiably Goidelic rather than Brythonic Celtic elements and are an indication of at least a Gaelic-speaking elite in the area, the main languages in the area since the 5th century appear to have been Brythonic and Old English, the latter of which developed into its modern forms of English and Scots. There are two British Parliamentary constituencies in the Borders. Berwickshire and Selkirk covers most of the region and is represented by John Lamont of the Conservatives.
The western Tweeddale area is included in the Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale & Tweeddale constituency and is represented by David Mundell of the Conservatives. At Scottish Parliament level, there are two seats; the eastern constituency is Ettrick and Berwickshire, represented by Conservative Rachael Hamilton. The western constituency is Midlothian South and Lauderdale and is represented by SNP Christine Grahame. Following the 2012 local elections, the council administration was a coalition of Independents, Scottish National Party and Liberal Democrats. Prior to the election a coalition of Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and Independents ruled; the Conservatives were the biggest party on the council with 10 seats, the Liberal Democrats had six. The SNP had nine seats and the Independents had seven. Two councillors form the Borders Party. Following the 2017 local elections, the council is now a coalition of Independents and Conservatives; the Conservatives became the largest party on the council with 15, an increase of 5.
At the Census held on 27 March 2011, the population of the region was 114,000, an increase of 6.78% from the 106,764 enumerated at the previous Census. The region had until September 2015 no working railway stations. Although the area was well connected to the Victorian railway system, the branch lines that supplied it were closed in the decades following the Second World War. A bill was passed by the Scottish Parliament to extend the Waverley Line, which aimed to re-introduce a commuter service from Edinburgh to Stow and Tweedbank; this section of the route re-opened on 6 September 2015, under the Borders Railway branding. The other railway route running through the region is the East Coast Main Line, with Edinburgh Waverley and Berwick being the nearest stations on that line, all of which are outwith the Borders. Since 2014 there has been discussion of re-opening the station at Reston, within the region and would serve Eyemouth. To the west, Carlisle and Lockerbie are the nearest stations on the West Coast Main Line.
The area is served by buses. Express bus services link the main towns with rail stations at Edinburgh and
Edinburgh
Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 council areas. Part of the county of Midlothian, it is located in Lothian on the Firth of Forth's southern shore. Recognised as the capital of Scotland since at least the 15th century, Edinburgh is the seat of the Scottish Government, the Scottish Parliament and the supreme courts of Scotland; the city's Palace of Holyroodhouse is the official residence of the monarch in Scotland. The city has long been a centre of education in the fields of medicine, Scots law, philosophy, the sciences and engineering, it is the second largest financial centre in the United Kingdom and the city's historical and cultural attractions have made it the United Kingdom's second most popular tourist destination, attracting over one million overseas visitors each year. Edinburgh is Scotland's second most populous city and the seventh most populous in the United Kingdom; the official population estimates are 488,050 for the Locality of Edinburgh, 513,210 for the City of Edinburgh, 1,339,380 for the city region.
Edinburgh lies at the heart of the Edinburgh and South East Scotland city region comprising East Lothian, Fife, Scottish Borders and West Lothian. The city is the annual venue of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, it is home to national institutions such as the National Museum of Scotland, the National Library of Scotland and the Scottish National Gallery. The University of Edinburgh, founded in 1582 and now one of four in the city, is placed 18th in the QS World University Rankings for 2019; the city is famous for the Edinburgh International Festival and the Fringe, the latter being the world's largest annual international arts festival. Historic sites in Edinburgh include Edinburgh Castle, the Palace of Holyroodhouse, the churches of St. Giles and the Canongate, the extensive Georgian New Town, built in the 18th/19th centuries. Edinburgh's Old Town and New Town together are listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site, managed by Edinburgh World Heritage since 1999. "Edin", the root of the city's name, derives from Eidyn, the name for this region in Cumbric, the Brittonic Celtic language spoken there.
The name's meaning is unknown. The district of Eidyn centred on the dun or hillfort of Eidyn; this stronghold is believed to have been located at Castle Rock, now the site of Edinburgh Castle. Eidyn was conquered by the Angles of Bernicia in the 7th century and by the Scots in the 10th century; as the language shifted to Old English, subsequently to modern English and Scots, The Brittonic din in Din Eidyn was replaced by burh, producing Edinburgh. Din became dùn in Scottish Gaelic, producing Dùn Èideann; the city is affectionately nicknamed Auld Reekie, Scots for Old Smoky, for the views from the country of the smoke-covered Old Town. Allan Ramsay said. A name the country people give Edinburgh from the cloud of smoke or reek, always impending over it."Thomas Carlyle said, "Smoke cloud hangs over old Edinburgh,—for since Aeneas Silvius's time and earlier, the people have the art strange to Aeneas, of burning a certain sort of black stones, Edinburgh with its chimneys is called'Auld Reekie' by the country people."A character in Walter Scott's The Abbot says "... yonder stands Auld Reekie--you may see the smoke hover over her at twenty miles' distance."Robert Chambers who said that the sobriquet could not be traced before the reign of Charles II attributed the name to a Fife laird, Durham of Largo, who regulated the bedtime of his children by the smoke rising above Edinburgh from the fires of the tenements.
"It's time now bairns, to tak' the beuks, gang to our beds, for yonder's Auld Reekie, I see, putting on her nicht -cap!"Some have called Edinburgh the Athens of the North for a variety of reasons. The earliest comparison between the two cities showed that they had a similar topography, with the Castle Rock of Edinburgh performing a similar role to the Athenian Acropolis. Both of them had fertile agricultural land sloping down to a port several miles away. Although this arrangement is common in Southern Europe, it is rare in Northern Europe; the 18th-century intellectual life, referred to as the Scottish Enlightenment, was a key influence in gaining the name. Such luminaries as David Hume and Adam Smith shone during this period. Having lost most of its political importance after the Union, some hoped that Edinburgh could gain a similar influence on London as Athens had on Rome. A contributing factor was the neoclassical architecture that of William Henry Playfair, the National Monument. Tom Stoppard's character Archie, of Jumpers, said playing on Reykjavík meaning "smoky bay", that the "Reykjavík of the South" would be more appropriate.
The city has been known by several Latin names, such as Aneda or Edina. The adjectival form of the latter, can be seen inscribed on educational buildings; the Scots poets Robert Fergusson and Robert Burns used Edina in their poems. Ben Jonson described it as "Britaine's other eye", Sir Walter Scott referred to it as "yon Empress of the North". Robert Louis Stevenson a son of the city, wrote, "Edinburgh is what Paris ought to be"; the colloquial pronunciation "Embra" or "Embro" has been used, as in Robert Garioch's Embro to the Ploy. The earliest known human habitation in the Edinburgh area was at Cramond, where evidence was found of a Mesolithi
